Hummingbird Wisdom: Listen Up!

This episode highlights the connection between self-awareness, personal growth, and effective leadership through insights drawn from animal totem guides, specifically the hummingbird. Rhonda emphasizes the importance of nurturing joy and playfulness in leadership while exploring the necessity for introspection and understanding one's responses.
• Importance of self-care and acknowledgment of personal limits
• Introduction to animal totem guides and their significance
• Daily rituals for setting intentions and personal growth
• Insights from the hummingbird card: joy, resilience, and playfulness
• Recognizing automatic reactions and understanding personal triggers
• Encouraging a culture of growth and self-awareness in teams
• Embracing joy and lightheartedness in leadership practices
• Final reflections on nurturing personal gifts while leading others

You can subscribe to Rhonda’s emails at her website, rondadelaney.com, to stay updated on leadership insights and developments.

SIOUX STORM ANIMAL TOTEM GUIDE

RHONDA'S FREE RAVING FANS CHALLENGE

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Well, hey there. Welcome to the People Gardener podcast. I'm Rhonda Delaney, your host, also known as the People Gardener, thrilled to put this podcast together to help small business owners, new business owners, frustrated business owners and aspiring leaders, whether they're inside business or outside. Each week, we bring you some actionable steps so that you can actually improve your skill as a leader. That's what we're about. We're here to help you become a better leader by giving you access to lots of different perspectives. By giving you access to lots of different perspectives. The guests are varied. We're thrilled to have them. Get out your pen, get out your paper and be ready to learn Every single episode. You're going to be able to take something away that you can implement. Are you ready? Let's get to work. Well, hey there. Welcome back to the People Gardener podcast. I'm Rhonda Delaney, your host, happy to have you here this week.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Oh, it's been a wild ride these last few weeks, being sick myself and now hubby Trev. He got pretty hit by it and he's on the mend. Hit by it and he's on the mend, but it really throws your schedule off, and so part of me growing as a person is acknowledging the need to rest and not feel guilty about not being able to perform my usual task, hence the replay episode last week, because there was no way I was going to be able to bring any energy or enthusiasm to my podcast episode the way that I felt this week. I want to talk about the totem guides that I have started working with. Sue Storm is a gal that's in my business coaching program and she made these absolutely gorgeous. For those of you listening, I'm sorry you can't see these. Go to the video on YouTube and you'll be able to see the guides, but oh the, the artistry is just fabulous and it's a delight just to look at the cards each day. These are animal totem guides and in indigenous cultures they all have stories, stories around these animals. There's the four different sections. This is all new to me, so I'm learning and I'm probably bumbling along, right, but just to give you an idea of what it is. And so we've got air, water, fire and earth and we have animals in those four quadrants. And so each morning you know I have my, I have my ritual, I guess you would call it. It's not really a ritual, it's just how I processed starting my day, and so at breakfast I read my bible and then I shuffle these cards and I spread them out and I set an intention about what it is that I could use some help further clarifying or expanding on. So I'm going to share what I did today and the card that came up. There is no right or wrong way, it's completely up to you, but I just find it a very restful and calm way of introspection. Yeah, I guess introspection is the right word.

Speaker 1: 4:02

Part of being a successful small business owner and an effective leader is really understanding yourself and growing yourself. If you expect your people to grow and become more of who they are in that very positive way, you have to be willing to do it yourself, and a lot of times you have reactions to things that don't make a lot of sense. You know it's a knee-jerk and if you don't analyze why you had such a visceral response to something, you're missing out. You're missing out on growing as a person, but you're also missing out on the teaching moment that could be there because you are so into the reaction that you had and I can remember as a parent, right? You probably if you have children, you've probably been there too.

Speaker 1: 5:09

It was the automatic. A kid came up and asked a question wanted to do something, wanted something whatever, and this just without any conscious thought. It was no. For me that was common. And yet if I stopped to think about it, more often than not the question came at a time that I was busy and I was focused in doing something that I felt needed to be done at that moment and I didn't have time to really listen and dissect what it was that they were asking. I shouldn't say lots. There were many times where I went back and said you know what? I wasn't right, I didn't see the whole picture and yes, there's no problem, we can do that or we can go there, whatever it might be. So, really getting into yourself and how you think and what you truly believe and what you value, it's important to know those things so that when situations come up, you know where your response is coming from and you're honest. You're honest with yourself. It might be your own aversion to something and it's not got anything to do with that something. It's your own issue and yet your response is making it their issue and it's not their issue, it's your issue. So, anyway, let's talk about these cards.

Speaker 1: 7:04

So this morning, my intention that I set as I looked at the cards, I shuffled them and I spread them out. And I looked at the cards and my intention was what innate gifts should I be nurturing? What innate Rhonda Rhonda-isms who I am Do I need to be nurturing? And so the deck was spread out and I'm looking. I spent a bit of time looking at these cards. They were all face down, but there was this one card that had this white dot I'll show it to you a dot in the top corner. And as I was scanning these cards this one it just kept poking at me, going okay, no, that's the one. And so that's the card I picked.

Speaker 1: 8:04

And the card is a hummingbird. I was so delighted to get that because we have resident hummingbirds that hang out at our bubbler, our rock bubbler, in the summer and it is so delightful because they're very playful, they're fun to watch. They're territorial At one point I think there was four of them but they fight. They're annoyed when somebody comes into into their area that isn't supposed to be there. But I just love the energy of them and how much they look like they're having fun. So the hummingbird, it's a multi-tasker joy protectiveness, harmony and direction.

Speaker 1: 8:58

As I was reading through, there's a little manual that comes with this, as I was not surprised by that. That is something that I I don't yeah, I want to say I'm innately that way, but I do. I am a glass half full kind of gal, looking for the solutions, finding the positive in situations. That was reaffirming for me to be able to see that. But the other thing that came up was resilience and poise. I look at my life and all of the things that have happened in my life and I'm going yeah, yeah, I am resilient. I shattered my leg. I spent nine and a half months on crutches. I am walking again. I have been through 15 years of corporate and been unceremoniously fired and I'm now doing this and moving forward. So, yeah, there's I mean, there's lots more that has happened in my life and I'm sure it's happened in yours, right, and it's like, oh okay, so that is a gift and any gift that I have have that in in me.

Speaker 1: 10:41

What came up and it just just kept coming up over and over, day after day was the playfulness adding it, making sure that it's there in my life instead of it being this heavy, serious. Not that life isn't serious. Life is serious if your faith is in eternity. If your faith is in in heaven, of being there, let's say and mine is, I absolutely believe having joy and having hopefulness, and the playing part of it is like, okay, no, you need to be joyful in the pursuit of that. So, being joyful in what you're doing, that means what you're doing has to align with your values and what is important to you. This has been fascinating for me. I hope that you will find it fascinating too if you dig into it.

Speaker 1: 12:03

I'm going to put the link to Sue's deck in the show notes. I'm not affiliated with her at all, other than we're in the same coaching program and I've just really I mean I've loved the art, but just the process of it and learning a bit more about myself and reaffirming some things, questioning other things. But you, as a small business owner, growing yourself, becoming more self-aware, will help you when it comes to interacting with your people. It will show them, it will demonstrate to them that growing is a positive thing, it's something that you're willing to do while you're asking them to do the same thing. So, as I reflect on today, the hummingbird and the delight that the hummingbirds around here have given me, that's what I want to focus on. I want to focus on. I want to focus on being playful and finding the humor and finding the lightness so that people can walk with a spring in their step, so that they can lead, so that they can fulfill whatever their role is in a light, fun way.

Speaker 1: 13:32

That's it for this week. We'll talk to you again next week. Well, thanks for joining me today. Just a quick reminder if you are not on my email list, go to my website, rondadelaneycom, and there's a place there that you can subscribe. Keep you up to date on all things people gardening and leadership. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you again next week.